Increasing Faculty Participation and Mentorship in Quality Improvement with an Experiential Four-Hour Workshop

BACKGROUND: Graduate medical education programs lack enough faculty trained in quality improvement (QI). A major barrier to increasing the number of faculty competent in QI is insufficient time to engage in training. Research is missing on the effectiveness of short faculty development workshops to teach academic faculty QI principles and promote participation and mentorship in QI projects. OBJECTIVE: The authors assessed the ability of a four-hour experiential QI workshop to increase faculty proficiency in QI principles, enhance faculty involvement in QI, and improve resident mentorship in QI. METHODS: From 2016 to 2017, the authors conducted seven QI faculty development workshops at a large academic medical center with 12 ACGME training programs. We evaluated the workshop using pre- and post-workshop surveys, as well as six- and twelve-month follow up surveys. RESULTS: Sixty-five faculty participated in seven workshops over 13 months. All participants completed pre- and post-workshop surveys, while 38% (n = 25) responded to the six- and twelve-month follow up surveys. Overall, the workshop significantly increased confidence to lead and mentor residents on a QI project (25% pre vs. 72% post, p < .001), increased ability to teach QI (8% pre vs. 36% post, p < .001), increased participation in planning and decision making on a QI team (32% pre vs. 50% post, p = .002), and increased the mean number of QI projects implemented (.45 pre vs. 1.24 post; p < .05). CONCLUSION: A four-hour QI workshop is a quick and effective training method to develop academic faculty to teach and mentor residents in QI. The principles taught increased perceived knowledge, confidence in mentorship, and participation in QI.